I have shared my views on the DREAM Act before; I am bringing this up again because it is set to go before the Senate yet again. There are many reasons to support the DREAM act, and I found this article that gives you one more. A little background:

The Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act is a bipartisan bill that would provide a path to legal residence for undocumented young people who were brought to the United States as children. The conditions: They must graduate from high school, demonstrate good moral character, and — to keep their legal status — complete at least two years of higher education or at least two years service in the U.S. military.

Without the relief of the DREAM Act, the future of these American-educated young people is bleak.

About 65,000 such eligible students graduate from U.S. high schools each year, but upon graduation, these young people, who include honor roll students, star athletes and junior ROTC members, hit a wall.

Instead of advancing to college or the military and later repaying the investment that taxpayers made in their education, they live in fear of being discovered by the Department of Homeland Security and deported to their “home” country, even if it is a country they cannot remember and where they have no friends, family or support.

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Potential DREAM Act beneficiaries like David and Cesar are a military recruiter’s dream candidates for enlistment, even if they have no legal status. They are Americanized, having lived in the United States for at least five years, unlike the newly lawful permanent residents whom the military currently enlists.

DREAM Act beneficiaries have no adult period of residence in a foreign country, making it easier to perform background checks for security clearance. They often speak both English and another language fluently. Many have participated in Junior ROTC in high school. They do not have criminal records or other evidence of bad character. They have graduated from a U.S. high school.

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Instead of wearing our uniforms, these recruits could be recruited to work for foreign governments, foreign militaries and foreign intelligence agencies. At a time when we are focused on protecting our borders and quashing threats to our national security, it seems unwise to export thousands of American-educated and American-acculturated young people to militaries other than our own.

Citizenship by birth is the new hot topic for the anti-immigration crowd, also the term birth tourism.

Birth tourism is the concept that foreigners come here just for the purpose of having a baby and later on that child could claim the parents to begin the process of residency. This sounds a bit farfetched to me, just because of the expense of coming to the US, paying a steep hospital bill and going back to your country and waiting until the child turns 21 to come back. It is possible, everything is possible, but sound very impractical. What if the kid doesn’t want to come here? or dies before turning 21? or the laws change? And if you can afford all the process why not try to move to the US in the first place… yes the immigration laws, even if you have money, it is not that easy.

I think that this issue of citizenship at birth has come up because of the illegal immigration issue and what people call “anchor babies”. Read the rest of this entry »

As I said many times before, I do not agree with illegal immigration, there I said it again. The new law in Arizona it is not well written. I don’t have a problem with police upholding the laws, but this one is vague and creates the opportunity for abuse and racial profiling, here is why.

What does an illegal immigrant look like? Who can tell me? The governor of Arizona could not answer that question when asked. I know that the vast majority of illegals, undocumented come from Mexico and Central America, that doesn’t mean that they are the only ones, or that everybody from those regions are here illegally.

I’ve been watching the news and when the interview white people they say they don’t mind if they are asked to show “their papers” because they can prove they are citizens. But they do not carry their passport or birth certificate, nobody does. That is how you prove you are a citizen, not just by having a driver’s license, illegals have them too. Only permanent residents carry their permanent resident card also known as green card, by the way it is not green. Once you become a citizen you don’t have that anymore, you have a certificate, which you are not allowed to copy and should not carry with you; you can get a passport, something you don’t normally carry with you to work or to go grocery shopping.

This new law says that police can stop anybody and ask them to prove that they are here legally if the have the ‘suspicion’ that they are here illegally. What would make you suspicious that somebody is here illegally by just looking at them? Do you think they are going to stop a white, all-american looking man or woman? really?

During my time here I have volunteered in many places, even taught English as a second language. I have met people that told me that they came legally but overstayed, meaning they were now illegals, from Russia, Romania, Belgium, I don’t know what happened to them, if they went back or not, but the where all white, most of the blond, they would never get stopped on ‘suspicion’ of being illegal. I met a lady from China that told me stories about large numbers of people coming here illegally from her country. I have heard the same from Africa. But lets face it, it is true that the majority come from south of the border, so anyone that looks like they do is fair game. I belive that is called racial profiling.

A US Citizen from Texas was detained in Michigan suspected of being an illegal alien because he was working as a migrant worker and looked Mexican.

How many US citizens carry with them their birth certificate or passport?
Do you feel that you have to carry proof of your citizenship when traveling inside your own country????
If you do, please let me know why

This guy didn’t and he spent 17 days in jail:

For 17 days he was chained, jailed and threatened with deportation to Mexico. For 17 days Brigido Oregon, a West Michigan migrant farm worker from Texas, pleaded his innocence.

On the 17th day, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed he, indeed, was a U.S. citizen, and allowed him to leave jail.

Apparently we do… according to a research done by the Associated Press, after it interviewed at least 55 US citizens that have been detained for immigration violations for time ranging from a day to years and also some have been deported. How can you accuse a US citizen of immigration violations when they are not immigrating?!?! Read the article here

How can we improve the system so that this doesn’t happen anymore?

Imagine spending hours, days, maybe years in jail for being assumed to be foreigner in your own country… do you carry your birth certificate or passport with you at all time??? If you don’t maybe you should.

Last year I wrote about the Dream Act here about many immigrant youth that were brought to the US usually as infants and that are Americans in almost every way, except they are undocumented. In the article I cited at that time there were a few that didn’t even know they were undocumented, until it was time to get a driver’s licence or go to college, because they could not do either one.

That is where The Dream Act comes in, it is a project to help those kids go to college. It is not to pay for their college education, it to allow them to go. They had no say in what country they were raised, they had no say in coming here; but they are here now, they are great members of society, they are good students and they want to pursue a higher education.

The Dream Act was introduced on March 26, 2009. You would probably ask, why do I care? Why should I support them, they are not here legally? Well first, it was not their choice, second they are already here, they have been raised as Americans, and lastly, as members of society wouldn’t you rather have these kids go on to college and become part of the engine that moves the country forward? would you rather they be unemployed or worst? They have so many possibilities, they can find the cure for AIDS or Cancer or Parkinson’s, they can improve the way of life of their own communities, they can be anything that they set their minds to be. Would you want that possibilities for yourself or your own. Well they are your own. Read their stories here they are not an abstract idea, they are real, they are Americans from every corner of the world and they come in all shapes, colors and sizes. Help them become the better future for America…

This is a case of an immigrant woman that I have heard allegedly happen and I want to know not only your opinion but does she have any rights.

This starts like any other love story, boy meets girl they fall in love they get married. Things change and unlike other love stories, they don’t live happily ever after. She is an immigrant in his country…

I don’t know how she came in, I am lacking a lot of details, but she is an illegal immigrant now. During the course of their marriage he was supposed to have asked for her green card but apparently didn’t. I have my doubts that it was even a legal marriage.

After a while he became abusive, mostly verbally and then escalated, the abuse became also physical. For some reason, some women stay in relationships like that, I will never understand why.

Then she got pregnant, the abuse ceased for a little and then started again, but this time she was pregnant and afraid to miscarriage because of the beatings. She left him and ended up at his parents house; they welcomed her with open arms, they always treated her as a daughter and they said they’ll figure out how to make things work.

One day she overheard a conversation between her mother in law and her son (her husband); she was saying that they only needed to wait for a few more weeks until the baby was born, then she would call immigration have the daughter in law deported that way they could get rid of her and keep the baby. She panicked, Read the rest of this entry »